I stayed in the second division for about six, sevenmonths. I was assigned to the lower handling room forthe 14-inch guns. With not much money, I laid up on myhammock and read when I was off duty so I could studyfor seaman second and seaman first class and make alittle more money. The chief quartermaster came downone day and said, “Lou, I see you up here reading all thetime, how would you like to be a quartermaster striker?”I said, “I’d love to,” because we all knew the quarter-masters didn’t have to scrub decks or shine brass; theyworked on charts and graphs and grids in the navigationdepartment. During my time as quartermaster, I becamechannel helmsman and I was quartermaster of the watchand so forth, and that’s where I was when Pearl Harborhappened.

I had the 8-to- 12 watch. About 5 minutes to 8, we
hoisted colors and the captain went to the bridge and
said, “Secure the quarterdeck and come to the bridge,”
because we were going to get underway. If it [the attack]
had been another three or four minutes later, I would
have been in the bridge and killed with the rest of them.

We were pulling the gangplanks in and cutting thelines between the vessels and the Japanese startedcoming in. Then the bomber came across with thelucky hit, must have been a 1,600- to 1,800-poundarmor-piercing bomb. It went through five decks intothe lower handling room, and we had a million poundsof powder in there for the 14-inch guns.

When that blew up, everything from the main mast
forward was gone except for about six men in the foremast, which was up in the fire control tower above the
bridge. Lauren Bruner and Don Stratton were both up
on the topside there. They’re still living.

I was on the Arizona football team with a guy namedB.J. Johnston from Texas. He was a gunner’s mate infifth division, and he said, “Lou, let’s go to flight school,I’d like to go be a naval aviation pilot.” And I said, “Weprobably can’t, we’re both right-arm [seamen] rates.”I had a girlfriend over there. Her family were great tome, they were like a mother and dad, they watched melike a hawk and kept me from getting in trouble. I wasover to her house one night for dinner in September of’ 41, and in walked Adm. [William] Calhoun, who wascommander of base force [for the Pacific fleet].

We were talking and he said, “Well what do you
do, Lou? Are you going to school or something?” I
said, “Admiral, I’m a quartermaster third class on
the Arizona.” And I told him about us wanting to go

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Conter at right, is joined by fellow USS Arizona survivors, from the left, Ken Potts, Don Stratton and Lauren Bruner, at the Arizona Memorial during
the 75th commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The fifth remaining Arizona survivor, Lonnie Cook, did not attend.